Process migration has been advocated as a means of improving the load balancing and reliability of distributed systems. This thesis identifies a new process migration algorithm by reviewing the major design issues in the design of a process migration algorithm. After describing the existing algorithms, the new algorithm is described and compared to the existing migration algorithms. This new algorithm promises better load balancing results while avoiding residual dependencies.

A general suite of protocols are then developed which are designed to be used in the implementation of any of the identified migration algorithms. These protocols are then used to develop a design for the implementation of a multi-algorithm migration mechanism. These protocols and the implementation design greatly simplify the work required to implement a new migration mechanism.